Ryan Hunter-Reay finishes second in Detroit race one

With fifth place finish, Helio Castroneves takes points lead

ETROIT (JUNE 1, 2013) – Defending IZOD IndyCar Series champion Ryan Hunter-Reay, No. 1 DHL Andretti Autosport Chevrolet, claimed his third 2013 IZOD IndyCar Series podium of the season with a second-place finish on Saturday in the first race of the Chevrolet Dual in Detroit at the Raceway on Belle Isle.

Starting fourth on the grid for the 70-lap/164.22-mile race on the 13-turn/2.36-mile temporary street course, Hunter-Reay led once for 20 laps on the way to his runner-up finish, which moved him to second in the standing, just three points out of the top spot.

Helio Castroneves, No. 3 Hitachi Team Penske Chevrolet, took over the lead in the standings with a fifth place finish in the sixth race of the 2013 IndyCar Series season. Castroneves started 12th on the 25-car grid.

Will Power, No. 12 Verizon Team Penske Chevrolet, finished eighth to give the Chevrolet IndyCar V6 three of the top-10 finishers.

“A tough day for many of our Chevrolet IndyCar V6 teams and drivers in Race One at the Detroit Belle Isle Grand Prix,” said Chris Berube, Chevrolet Racing Program Manager, IZOD IndyCar Series. “But, the race completed with dry conditions despite a forecast for rain. Team Chevy now holds the top three positions in driver points and maintains the lead in the Manufacturer points battle. We will regroup overnight for Race two of the first-ever doubleheader weekend, and come back to race for the win.”

DRIVER POST RACE QUOTES:

RYAN HUNTER-REAY, NO 1 DHL ANDRETTI AUTOSPORT CHEVROLET, FINISHED 2ND: ON THE RACE: “The track was constantly changing all day because it was so green to start with. As we got going, it was like a motocross track. Every lap was different. The grip was changing which altered the balance of the car. It was fun in a way as we tried to stay on top of it. We lost the race on the middle stint when we went to alternate tires. I’m not sure why or what’s happening. We’re just beating up our rear tires more than others. I know some of the other guys really struggled on alternates but when Conway went black-black-red and we went black-red-black. I was catching him two seconds a lap at the end but it wasn’t enough. It’s tough, I’ll tell you. But what a weekend for Conway to show up. Congratulations to him. I really wanted to win it for Chevy today and I’m bummed we couldn’t do it.”

HELIO CASTRONEVES, NO. 3 HITACHI TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET, FINISHED 5TH: ABOUT TODAY’S RACE: “I just saw that I’m on top of the points, but I mean really Mike Conway – great job. Jumping straight from the couch to the driver’s seat. It just proves that the series is very competitive with the teams. And now we’ve taken the points lead, which is very good. What we had was great; I wish it could’ve been a little bit more, but we’ll take it.”

ABOUT RACE 2: “Our strategy for tomorrow is just to keep it clean like we did today. It was a perfect call from everyone, from John Erickson. For now we just need to keep going. We have a good momentum and we want to get the podium, but in order to get on the podium we have to pass a lot of cars.”

WILL POWER, NO. 12 VERIZON TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET, FINISHED 8TH: ON TODAY’S RACE: “Man, that was a hard race, I drove the Verizon Team Penske Chevrolet at 100% every single lap. That was the hardest I’ve ever worked and not won a race, it really shows the competition level right now. We had great restarts today which hopefully will carry over to tomorrow and starting closer to the front should help us be in it at the end.”

TONY KANAAN, NO. 11 HIPPINO.COM KV RACING TECHNOLOGY-SH RACING CHEVROLET, FINISHED 13TH: ON THE RACE: "This was not the result that I was looking for the Hippino.com/Chevy/Firestone car, but I can say I gave my best today. I took the opportunity in every restart to gain positions, but the bottom line is that we did not have the speed to run upfront with those guys. The No. 11 crew will continue to work hard on getting the car where it should be for tomorrow's warmup and I hope that we can get a better result in race two."

JAMES HINCHCLIFFE, NO. 27 GODADDY ANDRETTI AUTOSPORT CHEVROLET, FINISHED 15TH: ON RACE: "Up and down day for us, unfortunately. I think that we actually had a pretty decent car. In the first half of the race we were picking guys off and got up to, I think, just outside the top 10 from 20th. I was trying to get by Graham (Rahal) in Turn 3 and we went side-by-side there, and I had to use a lot of curb and ended up picking up a tire on the inside of the thing there. It caused us an early stop which meant we had to stop again for a splash at the end. It's too bad because the pace was there for a solid top 10 which, after where we started, I would have been happy with. The GoDaddy Chevy just got better and better as the race went on, and hopefully that is a good sign for tomorrow and we can start up in the top 10 now, and take the lessons learned today and just try to keep moving forward."

SIMONA DE SILVESTRO, NO. 78 NUCLEAR ENTERGY AREVA KV RACING TECHNOLOGY CHEVROLET, FINISHED 16TH: ON THE RACE: ““I think it was a hard race; we fought hard, but we kind of got squeezed out on the wrong side on the one restart and lost five positions there. That was a bit frustrating, but I think we’re kind of ok. We still need a little bit of work for tomorrow, so we’re going to go back and open the books again and try to do it better. During the race we learned a lot and that should really help. Hopefully we can improve tomorrow and bring the Nuclear Clean Air Energy home to a better finish than today.”

E.J. VISO, NO. 5 TEAM VENEZUELA PDVSA CITGO ANDRETTI AUTOSPORT HVM CHEVROLET, FINISHED 17TH: ON TODAY’S RACE: “Definitely an extremely disappointing result. I feel terrible for everybody involved in my crew and my car. It’s extremely frustrating, but at the same time, things like this happen in racing. I have nothing else I can do at this point except to focus on tomorrow’s race. Thanks to my crew and everyone at Andretti Autosport for giving me a car fast enough for pole position and getting my first “pole” in IndyCar.”

ED CARPENTER, NO. 20 FUZZY’S VODKA ED CARPENTER RACING CHEVROLET, FINISHED 18TH: ON RACE: “We got a lot better over the course of the race. We are getting closer with car so I believe we’ll be better for tomorrow’s (Sunday) race. We were able to be more competitive as the race went on. We thought there might be rain later in the race so we went on a different strategy a bit. This is a tough track. It was a good job by Mike (Conway) but I’m bummed out a Chevrolet didn’t win. Hopefully Chevy can come back and take Sunday’s race. There were a lot of marbles and it made it tough if you got off the line. And you also picked up some stuff on the tires. Tag (Alex Tagliani) even lost it under yellow so you can see how tough it was off line. It made it tough to pass because you had to go off the groove and it was slick. Overall, we ran all day and we learned some stuff for the future.”

RYAN BRISCOE, NO. 4 NATIONAL GUARD PANTHER RACING CHEVROLET, FINISHED 21ST: CONTACT: “It was good fun out there; I passed a lot of cars and the car was great. I was just setting up Graham (Rahal) for a pass there with a few laps to go and turned in too wide on the dust and the National Guard car came around on me. It’s a real bummer that we didn’t finish but all-in-all it was a super positive race, and we had really good speed. I was feeling really good in the car and the pit stops were great. We’ll try to have the same kind of pace tomorrow.”

SEBASTIAN SAAVEDRA, NO. 6 TRUECAR DRAGON RACING CHEVROLET, FINISHED 22ND: CONTACT ON TRACK: "It's a very disappointing way to end up with a race that was looking very good. The #6 True Car Dragon Racing guys gave me a great car and we had a well planned strategy for the day. We were in a solid position to get our first Top-10 of the season. Unfortunately Marco (Andretti) bumped me and I was taken out of the race prematurely. We had a great day going and its disappointing to end this way."

SEBASTIEN BOURDAIS, NO. 7 MCAFEE DRAGON RACING CHEVROLET, FINISHED 24TH: MECHANICAL: "I had a decent start, but lost a few positions after getting caught behind the Allmendinger crash on the first lap. We made a lot of progress after that, passing a lot of cars and having good laps. I caught up to Sebastian (Saavedra) and my throttle got stuck. I am lucky I didn't take him out because it was very close and the stuck throttle ended our day early."

AJ ALLMENDINGER, NO. 2 QUICKEN LOANS TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET,FINISHED 25TH: CONTACT ON TRACK - “The Quicken Loans Chevrolet was in a tight pack on the start and as it got crowded in the turn I made contact with Scott (Dixon) and unfortunately couldn’t recover from there. It is obviously very frustrating because the my guys had given me a great car and with this being Quicken Loans’ race I really wanted to put on a great performance for them. Luckily we have another opportunity tomorrow to get a great result and I am determined to give all that I have to get us competing up at the front.”